


Dependency

by Ayries (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Community: sherlockbbc_fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-08
Updated: 2010-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Ayries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>(Prompt: John dies. Sherlock... doesn't cope.)</i>
</p><p>Two months isn't a very long time to have become dependent, but Sherlock never does anything by halves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dependency

It has been a week, three days and two hours since John's death, and Sherlock has discharged himself. His wounds hurt, he is something close to limping and even the short walk to get a taxi exhausts him more than he expected.

The moment he is in the cab he starts to wish, despite all these indisputable facts, he'd instead attempted to walk back anyway. There's too much room in the back seat to stretch his arms out to the sides, and there's not enough _noise_.

*

The lack of sound is even more glaring when he enters the flat again. This doesn't wholly surprise him- Sherlock has never really liked complete silence, he speaks his thoughts aloud to try and banish it where possible. Hence the skull. But his skull is missing for the moment, and he finds himself standing in the centre of the room quietly, not quite sure what to do now he's actually here. He had thought coming back, leaving the hospital would make this easier. A definite goal. A place to get back to. _Movement_. He's never really done... this, before. But he's sure that type of thing is supposed to help it along.

Now he's here, and the fridge buzzes faintly in the next room and the light is glaring, and... it's not really any better.

*

Sherlock Holmes knew John Watson for two months, give or take. Objectively, this is not a long time. It was long enough to get him killed, he supposes, but Sherlock doesn't think it should have been long enough for much else besides.

Except that he apparently became dependent on the other man during that period far beyond what he'd ever noticed, and Sherlock, with his finely-controlled and monitored mind, really isn't used to lacking self awareness. (He may also have become something else, something like _attached_, his mind supplies, but he tries to ignore the thought.)

He forgets to eat more than he has since the peak of his drug use. He is insensitive as ever to people at crime scenes, but this time he has nobody around to confirm he has done the 'wrong' thing, nobody to glance at him or nudge him towards the kind of socially acceptable that he discovered can actually _help _get answers out of people.

One particularly concerning incident has him crack the final, beautiful piece of a case and _forget_, just for one moment, turning to explain. Until he realises the one person who had actually truly listened, however crudely he did so, is dead, has been burned right out of existence with a surgical precision.

After that, he tries using the skull again, but the reminder of death is too strong and it doesn't last the week.

*

He knows Mycroft is growing concerned. The number of people Sherlock observes watching him doubles not long after John's death, and it becomes clear he has enlisted the help of much more of the police force than he normally bothers with. Of course, Mycroft doesn't do anything as mundane as _talk_ to him. Sherlock finds that he wishes his brother would, for once. Someone else in his rooms, however temporarily, would... help.

Mrs. Hudson has clearly noticed as well, but since her default mode is motherly, there's really not much difference, except that she no longer objects on the rare occasions he remembers to ask for food.

Lestrade just thinks he's on cocaine again, though he'll never admit it when he seems sure what the catalyst was. Sherlock wonders if his brother's ire is worth making this assumption correct, but decides against it in the end. Perhaps one day it will be time to point this out, but it's easier to deal with someone who thinks he's on drugs than someone who realises yes, perhaps he _can _do things like grieve, yes, he'd surprised himself too.

Lestrade is also considering Donovan's warnings about 'psychopaths' more carefully after Sherlock, in a fit of _something_, takes John's old gun out the drawer and finds he has need of it on a case.

His hands are not steady and the noise is painfully, cuttingly nostalgic, and Sherlock realises too late he has neglected his own advice about powder burns while he stares down at it.

*

Later that night, he sits on John's bed after returning the gun, and he doesn't cry, because that's just wasteful and pointless. But he does understand, for one second, why somebody _would, _which he doesn't think has ever happened before.

He thinks a start like that might be enough to honour John's memory for now.  



End file.
